Jerry Branton Hobbs III told police he became enraged when his 8-year-old daughter defied his order to come home, then killed the girl and her best friend with a small knife before dragging their bodies into the woods, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Hobbs, released last month from a Texas prison, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Mother's Day slayings of his daughter, Laura Hobbs, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9.

"This was a slaughter of two little girls," Lake County Assistant State's Atty. Jeffrey L. Pavletic said during a bond hearing for Hobbs, of the 2000 block of Gilboa Avenue in Zion.

In gripping and disturbing testimony, Pavletic read from Hobbs' purported confession during the hearing in the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan, where Judge Victoria L. Martin granted a prosecution request to deny bail.

Hobbs, 34, told police he was already angry Sunday because Sheila Hollabaugh, Laura's mother and Hobbs' girlfriend, had allowed the girl to go out to play even though she was supposed to be grounded for stealing $40 from her mother a week earlier, Pavletic said. Hobbs was living with Hollabaugh and her parents.

At 4:30 p.m., he went to Beulah Park to confront Laura, Pavletic said.

He found the girls and ordered his daughter to go home, and when she refused he began punching her, briefly knocking her unconscious, Hobbs allegedly told police.

Krystal tried to help her friend and pulled out a "potato knife"--apparently Texas slang for a small knife with a 4- to 6-inch blade--which Hobbs took away from her and used to stab the girls, Hobbs reportedly said.

"He said he grabbed [Laura], she grabbed back, and they started hitting each other, and that's when he hit her and punched Krystal," said Cmdr. William Valko of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. "Then he stabbed Krystal, and as his daughter is waking up he stabbed her."

He repeatedly stabbed both girls, Pavletic said.

"Laura had 20 stab wounds. She was stabbed in the neck, she was stabbed in the abdomen, she was stabbed once in each eye," Pavletic said, adding that Krystal was stabbed 11 times.

Hobbs told police he dragged the girls' bodies 20 feet to a wooded area of the park, Pavletic said. Their bodies later were found, faces beaten and bloodied, lying side by side with their shoes neatly placed next to them.

Hobbs then went home and tried to clean himself off with rubbing alcohol, prosecutors said.

Hobbs showed little remorse, Valko said.

"He did not shed a tear the whole time he was being interviewed by us about his daughter's death," Valko said. "The only time he cried was during a videotaped confession when he read what he was doing to the girls."

Prosecutors cast doubt on parts of Hobbs' story, saying they were skeptical that a young girl would have been carrying a weapon or that either child posed a physical threat to Hobbs.

"I don't necessarily believe that part of the statement" about the knife, said State's Atty. Michael Waller. "She may have grabbed a leg or something. She's a little girl. This guy is about 6-foot-1."

Krystal and Laura were each about 4 feet tall and 60 pounds, according to the coroner's office.

Hobbs initially told police the "potato knife" could be found at the crime scene, but later said he washed it at home, investigators said. Several knives were taken from Hobbs' residence to try to find DNA or blood evidence.

Hobbs first raised police suspicions when he reported finding the dead girls at 6 a.m. Monday. Although he told authorities he never got within 20 feet of the bodies, Hobbs gave a detailed description of the wounds, setting off alarm bells for investigators, prosecutors said.

In the close-knit Gilboa Avenue neighborhood Wednesday, Krystal Tobias' family and friends said it would have been in character for her to come to the aid of a friend, but not to carry a knife.

"She was not like that," said her half-brother Alberto Segura, 15. "My brothers had toy guns, and she was afraid of them. The only time she picks up a knife is if she's helping my mom cook."

But Krystal was brave, Segura said, and took no guff, even from her three brothers. "Every time we picked on her, she'd fight back," he said.

Rev. Gary Graf of Holy Family Church in Waukegan, said the Tobias family is still trying to come to grips with the tragedy.

"They have absolutely no thoughts about anything beyond their daughter--how this happened, why this happened," said Graf, who was counseling the family. "It's just right now to try to console themselves."

Hobbs, who appeared for the hearing Wednesday dressed in a blue jail jumpsuit, kept his head down and squeezed his eyes closed as prosecutors detailed the slayings.

When Judge Martin asked if he could afford his own attorney, he answered, "No, ma'am."

His voice was slightly shaky when he told Martin he was staying with Hollabaugh's family. He shook his head "no" as prosecutors began detailing the charges against him, saying he confessed to the crimes on videotape.